A national study discovered that teens in the United States consumed significantly less alcohol and drugs in 2024 compared to past years.
Teen alcohol use has steadily decreased from 2000 to 2024 — falling from 73% to 42% in 12th grade, 65% to 26% in 10th grade and 43% to 13% in 8th grade — according to data from Monitoring the Future (MTF), an annual federally funded study.
Every year, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research uses grant money from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct the MTF main study, which surveys more than 25,000 8th, 10th and 12th graders to monitor behaviors, attitudes and values of adolescents.
Meanwhile, the MTF’s panel study does follow-up surveys with roughly 20,000 adults ages 19 to 65 to continue to track trends over time.
The main study found that aside from the “long-term, overall decline” in teen alcohol use, in 2024, “alcohol use significantly declined in both 12th and 10th grade for lifetime and past 12-month use. In 10th grade, it also significantly declined for past 30-day use.”
Binge drinking, which researchers defined as “consuming five or more drinks in a row at least once during the past two weeks,” among teens also declined in 2024 for all three grades compared to 2023 and the past two-and-half decades.
Since 2000, binge drinking has fallen from 30% to 9% in 12th grade, from 24% to 5% in 10th grade and from 12% to 2% in 8th grade.
Teen cigarette use in 2024 was the lowest ever recorded since the survey started tracking 12th graders in 1975 and 10th and 8th graders in 1991.
“The intense public debate in the late 1990s over cigarette policies likely played an important role in bringing about the very substantial downturn in adolescent smoking that followed,” researchers said, adding that “an important milestone occurred in 2009 with passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and sale of tobacco products.”
Researchers emphasized that “over time this dramatic decline in regular smoking should produce substantial improvements in the health and longevity of the population.”
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Teen marijuana use (non-medical) in 2024 also declined for all three grades, with the percentage of students using marijuana in the last 12 months at 26% in 12th grade, 16% in 10th grade and 7% in 8th grade.
“Levels of annual marijuana use today are considerably lower than the historic highs observed in the late 1970s, when more than half of 12th graders had used marijuana in the past 12 months,” researchers reported.
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